Day #307: I Call it Attempted Coup Day, Josh Calls it Insurrection Day

When I started this blog, it had two purposes. First, as an outlet for me which I have needed, at some times more than others, but never not needed, over the past 9 months. And second, as a record of history so at some point if the world actually does survive I can pass this on to those who come after me as a record of what went down. Or, you know, give myself a hard edit like Anne Frank and L.M. Montgomery did and then pass it on. I often feel bad for Anne that her unedited diary became so popular. She worked really hard to edit the thing.

Anyway, if the second thing is a goal, today seems like an important day to record. I'm intentionally doing this before I take to the dregs of Facebook. I have been only on Instagram today for my social media...Instagram is bad enough but I have managed to more or less wall it off as a safer zone for me. Facebook...is a shit show. So I'm trying to get my thoughts down here first.

After days of rain and dreariness, today actually was pretty nice. Which meant I had to go burn the Christmas tree.

My faith is really important to me but sometimes I also think of Lutheranism as a culture I am passing on to James. It has traditions and stuff inside it that have really nothing to do with our core beliefs and everything to do with tradition, like with any religion or culture. And I don't think that's necessarily bad. Tradition has its place...it is soothing and is a continuation between the past and the future. I like having a church where we often say the same thing and do the same thing. The ritual is a part of it. It is meditative for me. I've spoken in the past of how I ended up in a worship service at St. Paul's cathedral in London with people from all over the world saying the Lord's prayer in their own language. In more modern churches that don't recite the Lord's prayer or have any of these common touchstones, you don't get these shared moments. So while I think divisions in the faith can be divisive, I'm okay with raising the kids in a really Lutheran tradition. And that includes the 12 days of Christmas. 

I grew up Lutheran but that wasn't really a part of my family tradition. It always annoyed my dad that the church wouldn't really do Christmas songs until Christmas Eve but sang them with gusto the Sunday after Christmas. As I've come to embrace all 12 days I realize it's because Christmas for us doesn't actually begin until Christmas Day (sometimes Christmas Eve, although technically that's still Advent,) and then we celebrate it up until Epiphany, which is Three Kings Day and celebrates the coming of the Magi. 

As a mom, I love this because Advent is all about getting ready...which means we can take our time. Everything doesn't have to look perfect Thanksgiving weekend. We can take it out slowly and get our stuff together slowly. It's a whole season of getting ready, and then you have 12 days to enjoy and celebrate it.

James is all for more Christmas, but I made one mistake in that I told him traditionally the tree is taken down on Epiphany and burned in a bonfire.

Of course, we don't have the ability to do a bonfire here at the house, but he helpfully pointed out to me that there are large fire pits at the beach and anyone can use them.

I was going to use the weather as an excuse, but then it was nice today and I thought...what the hell. There isn't a lot of school to do on Wednesdays and taking the tree to the beach to burn it would kill some time. It's a small tree. It would fit. 

As I pulled into the beach and started wondering about the logistics of using a fire pit, I heard on the radio that the Captiol in D.C. was on lockdown and legislators had been told to shelter in place because of threats of violence. I wasn't paying *that* much attention.

Today was always going to be annoying. Today was the day that the Vice President was going to count the electoral votes in front of Congress and finally and officially put this election to bed. And this election being this election, this thing that is usually a formality was going to have objections and all sorts of insanity. But everyone knew it was just for show. They were never going to get the election overturned. This is not how this works.

I won't go into excruciating detail about the tree burning. Suffice it to say, I'm not 100% sure that it is legal to use these fire pits to burn a tree, and also if you're going to do this I suggest either picking a bigger fire pit and not so windy a day or stripping the branches and burning it slowly. Also bring more wood and kindling. And this was a tiny tree, I mean, it's like Max height. Which is why I guess I thought it could work.

Anyway, all of that aside, by the time we got back in the car an hour later I had already heard from Josh that the Capitol had been evacuated and there were delays in sending in the National Guard and things were...not going well.

I haven't seen video of this. We broke up with cable awhile ago, and there are videos everywhere but because we don't have a TV upstairs I followed it by radio. So I've only heard it. But hearing was bad enough. 

A mob of what started as protesters but didn't stay that way, encouraged by the President, stormed the Capitol building to interrupt these procedures and try to stop them from certifying the election. How armed they were seems to be up for debate, probably depends on who, but I heard reports of ax handles, pitchforks, and throwing rocks and there must have been more than that because at least one person was shot and killed. The Capitol was evacuated and the National Guard had to be called in to restore order. When we turned the radio back on on the way home from the beach the National Guard was just arriving and the scene was still chaos. We heard reporters live from the scene and also heard Biden and Trump speak live. 

I'm old enough that I was an adult, albeit a young one, on 9/11, and in some ways this felt similar. The feeling of everyone watching, of feeling like the world was shifting under your feet. Of feeling helpless. Of course this one is very different. The loss of life isn't close to comparable, and we as a country were in some ways as united in that moment as we are divided right now. But there was this underlying feeling that I was getting that I compare to 9/11. I think it's that there's this shift. That something you've always counted on being true and real will never be again.

I'm listening to Barak Obama's memoir right now, and it's sometimes soothing and sometimes infuriating to listen to in this time. He said something, though, that resonated with me and I know it's something he's been raked over the coals by people on both sides of the aisle for saying. But he says he believes in the idea of America. He doesn't think America has always lived up to it...but he believes in the idea of it, in this crazy idea that there really could be a country where all men were created equal and had inalienable rights. I feel that way, too.

Since the Trump election, I have clung to my belief in America as a system. That one person couldn't hold absolute power, much as he might like to. To the fact that we have had for hundreds of years this flawed and imperfect system, but one that has insured passage of power from party to party and checks and balances that slow everything down and make everyone crazy. I think today was hard to watch because it was an attack on that. On the system. On the idea.

I've said all along I don't think Trump could do a military coup. He's not that smart. He could never get enough of the military to go along with him. He's a lot of things, but a genius strategist is not one of them. What I've been afraid of all along is what happened today...that this rabble he's roused could get violent and hurt someone, probably a twenty-three year old public servant just doing their job. I never believed he could mount a successful coup, and he can't. But there was a casualty. At this point the name and identity of the person who has died has yet to be released but I am betting it's a twenty-three year old public servant just doing her job.

And then the President told them to go home but also that he loved them and they were right. I'm not making that up. My dad will tell me later that I didn't hear him right and that's not really what he meant, but I was listening to the radio live as both he and Biden spoke. I heard it. And I was enraged.

All summer, all year really, I've been waiting for him to do what Presidents do. What I've seen Presidents do many times in my life time, going back to Ronald Reagan and the Challenger. Give that speech. The one where they say we've taken a loss and we're angry and we're sad and we have a shared humanity but we are still America and we will work together. The one where they thank the first responders at the hurricane site or talk about a school teacher's love after a shooting. I never liked any policy the George W. Bush administration pushed but when he stood there at Ground Zero and thanked the fire fighters I had tears in my eyes. Because even when you don't agree with them, that's the thing Presidents do. This President, through this crisis, with hundreds of thousands of Americans dead and health care workers at their breaking point and everyone sad, angry, and lonely...he's never done that. And maybe it's stupid but I think I hate him for not doing that more than I hate him for the hundred other awful things he is and does.

You know who did say it? Mike Pence. Mike Pence when he reopened the Senate after the National Guard secured it gave the speech the President should have given. I have no love lost for Mike Pence, but he said what should have been said hours earlier and he never would have done this.

I have a degree in Political Science, as I've said before, and so I know how to put this in constitutional terms. Our President, here in the U.S., is two things. First, he is the head of government, like the Prime Minister of the U.K. But he's also the head of state. He's also the queen. A good chunk of the job is ceremonial. It's standing there and saying, we are America, even the half of you who don't agree with me. It's showing the world and the country what America is and looks like, in good times and in bad. I've seen a lot of presidents do that. Bush at 9/11 is a big example. Obama when they took bin Laden, thanking the commanders, seeing it as a victory not for him but for us. It's being a statesman. The other presidents of my lifetime, I may have hated what they did, but they did it as statesmen and they understood it was a big stage. They treated the country and the office with respect. The current president has never done that and I hate him for it.

That may seem small. There are lots of reasons to hate him, probably bigger and more important ones than that. But America is an idea and a lot of people have fought for that idea, tried to make it better. Not just presidents, but people who registered people to vote in the Civil Rights era, like Fannie Lou Hamer and people who took up arms like those kids at D-Day...they really were just kids. I'm so tired of cynicism around that idea from both sides and when the so-called leader treats the country like it's just another of his shitty companies he can take or leave....I really just hate him so much.

I don't know where we go from here. The Republicans are running from him. If the election hasn't been certified at this hour, they're still working on him. Biden will be president in two weeks. But it's a shit show and I hate it so very very much. I hate to leave it there...but that's where we are tonight.

Media...huh. I took a break from news coverage today and read of all things Murder at the Vicarage, the first of the Miss Marple books by Agatha Christie that I'm reading for an Instagram reading challenge. Yesterday I worked through part of a 2002 poetry collection by Joy Harjo, that was lovely. I finished my book group book on Monday and it was decidedly okay. And I'm still watching 30 Rock as comfort TV. In fact, I think I'm gonna go watch that when I'm done here, after today that sounds just about right.

Tonight I'm grateful that we didn't burn the beach down, for my weird little kids, for chocolate cake and books and Josh and friends and sunshine and we made it through the day. And for...I never thought I'd say this...George W. Bush and Mike Pence. For saying what needed to be said. May the Republicans finally start listening.